SOMA (LGBT-scifi-romance)

Chapter Fourteen: Mercury

Sector 09: Cita Canis

Jan. 23, 462 AC

The old synthetic took Gemini by the shoulder and, with a nod to the humans around them, guided the dock worker's limp body around the Sanctuary vessel. Blood trailed. Trembling, Soma propelled himself after them.

Other than a bed and a red medi-kit on the far wall of the cargo space, the ship was barren. It stank a little like stale sweat and tobacco. A metal grate, slightly ajar, led to the cockpit. The old syn closed the back hatch, and then pressed Gemini up against the hospital cot on the ceiling. "Strap him in," the syn ordered. "He'll need to be pacified for transport."

"Don't you..." Soma swallowed, cleared his throat. "Don't you need my permission?"

The old syn snorted.

Soma crumpled with relief. He hastened to the cot, sliding buckles over Gemini's thigh and shoulders. He lowered his voice. "You're not actually from Sanctuary. Leanne sent you."

The syn breathed out a fistful of smoke. "Do you know how to use a tackbox?"

"I'm uh... yes," Soma stammered. "Leanne told me to come."

"Obviously." The syn removed the brown-leather cigar from her lips, dabbed the head against the ship wall, and inspected Gemini's side. "Looks like he's bleeding internally. Use the medi-kit. Give him a tackbox of the pink pressure-stops along his ribs. Then take off his jackets and tape his wound shut until we make it back to Clutchstone."

Leanne's here, Soma thought. We're safe, not abandoned. Gem's safe. The concept was foreign. He unlatched the kit. He took the tackbox, screwed in a pink vial one-handed, and pressed the contraption to the mottled blue on Gemini's chest. Dark foam hissed out from the puncture. Gemini jolted, and then the tightness between his broken ribs went slack. Soma removed Gemini's jacket and shirt and pressed white medical tape against an angry gash.

The old synthetic woman climbed past them to the narrow cockpit. She put her thumb against the controls and, with a lurch, the fake Sanctuary ship was off. Soma grabbed the hospital cot to steady himself. Buildings and artificial rain swept past.

"You're both late," the old syn said without turning. Her words smoked. She flicked her cigar butt back into the cargo hold. The spark spun. Soma coughed. "Be glad your syn's not beyond our help."

"I am glad," Soma pressed a hand to his shrunken stomach. "But first—d-do you have any food?"

That shocked a laugh out of the old syn. She gestured next to her. "I've protein bars and water packets."

Soma salivated. He pushed hair from Gemini's sweaty forehead, then crawled up to the cockpit and folded his body into the co-pilot seat, buckling straps around his waist. The posture aggravated his bruises. He found the stash of protein beneath his seat, peeled back the wrapper, and nearly inhaled the snowberry-jam bar.

The syn looked sideways at him. Soma noticed a pair of long deep scars on the insides of the old syn's forearms. "Name's Mercury."

For a moment, Soma stopped eating and stared. It couldn't be. Leanne's champion was a man. Leanne had said that... hadn't she? "But," Soma said, mouth full, and winced. "But you're old. And you're not..." Not at all what Soma pictured.

"Not exactly story-book looks?" Mercury asked. "I get that a lot."

Soma fidgeted with his coat hems, disappointed. Where was the cleft chin? The thick shoulders and herculean stature? He folded his arms and finished two protein bars before feeling sick. For the remainder of the long flight through Cita Canis, he put his dizzy head against the side window and stared out as they skimmed through the city towards the far colony perimeters.

As the artificial lights faded, he saw stars.

It wasn't the peppering of white pinpricks Soma saw through the barrier of Cita Avis. There was colour—plumes of violets and blues and towering clouds of green galaxies. The Milky Way cut across the darkness: a silver river against the universe. Every molecule of space was filled with light, stained with faraway worlds like Indian ink spilled in water.

Soma's breath caught. "I didn't know..." he whispered. "I've never seen space like this." He didn't know space could be as beautiful as Christmas mornings, as Cain and Maria dancing—cheek to cheek and laughing. Soma plastered his forehead against the glass, breath fogging like wings along his cheeks.

Mercury said, "Savour the view. Where we're going, it gets a lot darker."

The reds and ambers of the city faded to gray. Around them, the lunaroids of the moon grew larger, and the shadows darker, until even their searchlights were swallowed by space. Soma saw nothing but those faraway galaxies. Their vessel hissed through nitrogen winds and the windows grew hot to the touch. Strange echoes vaulted. Soma swore he heard a many-legged creature skitter across the belly of their ship.

"Where are we going?" Soma's voice broke.

"This colony's Gray Zone. Afraid?"

"I'm not," Soma said loudly. "Not of the Gray Zone. But people can't live so close to the barriers. Maria said it's off the electric grid. The radiation burns, and there are monsters."

Mercury showed her teeth. Her gaze was disdainful. "What sort of fairy tales have you been raised with, squirt?"

Soma huffed. "Well, I don't believe in monsters, but you shouldn't look down on stories. I mean, Leanne is a storyteller. You wouldn't call her promises just fairy tales."

"Leanne is much more than her stories." A large cement slab appeared briefly in the windshield before colliding with their vessel. Soma stifled a cry, but Mercury didn't blink as the debris rolled overhead. "Not even the Man of Means would burn a girl alive for telling stories."

The old story of Leanne scared Soma—had always scared him—reminded him of Old Earth and his own fires. "But she didn't really burn, right?" he asked. "Leanne's alive."

"Someone like Leanne can't be killed," Mercury's voice turned fierce, as venomous as the faded tattoos of snakes on her arms, or the silhouettes of snakes in her hair. "But what they did to her was monstrous. We have to put the cowardly sister and the rest of them to justice. We have to unmake humanity to do it."

The words made Soma lightheaded and made his pulse gallop. Unmake humanity? Soma hadn't thought that far.

Mercury sneered at his stunned expression. "We are at war, Soma. These aren't fairy tales. See, this irradiated cloud is where we live, and soon enough, you'll believe in monsters."